War veteran Matt Skokie is brutally murdered and his wife Gwen is raped and left near death.

That's how the latest US television sensation, ABC drama American Crime, begins and the show's frank portrayal of the reality of race and racism in the United States has won the show critical acclaim.

It's a shocking story but it's all the more shocking because the attack isn't seen, there's no gratuitous violence showing the attack, no elongated and unneeded rape scenes showing Gwen's distress or Matt's inability to fight off the attackers, the shocking story is what comes next.

In a time when more is more, where you can turn on a television and watch someone's head being ripped off or someone being brutally sexually assaulted without anyone batting an eyelid, American Crime goes beyond this and takes the story back to basics.

The show - which has received rave reviews in the US - is so tightly plotted, so tightly structured that every shot, every scene, every word is part of a masterpiece of commentary about racial tensions in the US.

Felicity Huffman is spell-blinding in the drama (Image: ABC)

Created by the writer behind 12 Years a Slave, John Ridley, the hard-hitting drama stars Timothy Hutton, Regina King and W. Earl Brown.

Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman is a revelation as the murdered Matt's mother, Barb Hanlon, but if you're looking for the nice Felicity Huffman here, you won't find her.

Instead is a mother so consumed by her bitterness and racism that when she's told 'Hispanic' she hears 'illegal immigrant' and 'Mexican' and nothing will put her right.

Speaking to her ex-husband, after throwing him under the bus to a reporter in the pilot episode, Barb's main issue is not because he left her and their sons in poverty because of his gambling addiction, it's because 'people like her shouldn't be left like that'.

Barb moans, constantly about how she had to raise her children in public housing 'with them'. It's all about how she didn't belong with 'them'.

The cast of American Crime (Image: ABC)

'Them' being non-whites. To Barb, they're 'others', they're not like her, not human almost. And watching her admit this is painful and troubling.

American Crime is uncomfortable viewing; watching five police officers arrive to arrest teenage Tony Gutierrez is one of the most tense scenes in the episode, in any episode for that matter.

With Michael Brown, Ferguson and the reality about the police's treatment of race in modern-day America, it is incredibly uncomfortable to watch, but it's important people do.

Art imitates life, but it can also bring about social change. A few years ago it was unheard of - it had literally been decades since - and now the three biggest shows on American television are fronted by people of colour.

Scandal led the pack by becoming the first television show in decades to be fronted by a woman of colour, Kerry Washington, and after blazing the trail it brought in Shondaland stablemate How to Get Away With Murder - fronted by Viola Davis - to big numbers and even bigger buzz.

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Likewise, comedy Black-ish is huge but Empire has become the highest rated television drama in years and it has grown its total audience each and every week since it debuted. That's an almost unprecedented feat.

On the CW, its critical darling of a breakout series is Jane the Virgin, which won its Hispanic star, Gina Rodriguez, a Golden Globe for her portrayal of a teenage girl who is accidentally artificially inseminated.

America has been crying out for more diversity on screen; to have their entertainment reflect their reality, and it's beginning to happen, but there is a less than savoury side to it and American Crime shows this.